Movie Monday: An Emergency Late Night Post

I come to you with a pressing update: I received notice in my email this evening that since Netflix is releasing a streaming-only option for $8/month, my streaming & 1 dvd at a time plan is going to increase to $10/month.

I realize they are trying to compete with Hulu (what does Hulu have, anyway? TV shows?), but I don't watch many instant movies on Netflix; if anything, my sister uses streaming more than I do. At first I used Netflix to watch all of Mad Men, & now I use it to watch movies that I would otherwise have to buy.  Wait Until Dark? Not a shot in hell I'm gonna find that in my local Blockbuster (& Netflix has already forced my other local Video store to close). The Grass Harp? $2 from Half.com. I don't generally buy movies.

So my options are:
1. Suck it up & pay the extra dollar
2. Go down to the $5, DVD-only plan, where I max out after 2 DVDs/month ($2.50/movie, Netflix? Come on)
3.  Quit Netflix all together & watch instant movies on Boyfriend's Queue, feel bitter against the world.

I know you're probably thinking 'Come on Beth, it's only $1!' But it's the principle of the thing. Why should they be allowed to price-gouge me because everybody else is happy watching only what's readily available? Not to make this sound like an issue of whose taste is better, but seriously. I want to watch movies from studios that didn't work out distribution deals, too.

I'll probably choose the cut-off-my-nose-to-spite-my-face & be happy about it option. Any way I go, Netflix is going to be losing my money.

Movie Monday: The Walking Dead (Episode 1)

"The Walking Dead" has taken over the "Mad Men" slot on Sundays. Since I was thirsty for a new story to obsess over, I became, for an hour, one of the mindless slaves their advertising wanted me to be.

The story is great, but it would be difficult to make a bad story out of what has been argued as the second greatest comic book of all time (nothing is better than Watchmen, y'all). The effects are great, the visual imagery is strong, and I have relatively few problems with the dialogue.

My biggest problem with this series is, of course, the acting. Andrew Lincoln, the man playing the protagonist Rick Grimes, is just not an interesting actor. Remember how in I Am Legend Will Smith was by himself on screen for the first 45 minutes of the movie & you barely noticed that nothing was happening? Yeah, that wasn't the case here. Lincoln lacks subtext & the ability to tell us what he is thinking without mugging. The brief moment we had with Shane (Jon Bernthal) & the rest of the van camp was spent with Bernthal more or less screaming at the camera "I AM THE BAD GUY. I WILL BE BAD. LOOK AT MY EYES! THEY SAY BAD GUY."

I suppose my other problem with the show is the pacing. It seemed over-anxious to get Shane into the city & around some grisly creatures to blow up. I could have used a few more traveling scenes, or some more  of the normal-life-backstory-lead-up. The first episode came off as rushed & almost forced, in a way that said "Look horror movie fans! Zombies! Please watch our show!" I supposed elapsed time is easier in comic books, when the author can write "later..." & the reader is free to imagine what happened in the interim.

And that's my problem overall with the TV version of "The Walking Dead"; it's not a book.

Movie Monday: Body Double

I was pretty busy this Monday with auditions, so my Dad & I had to do our Monday Movie watching at home. We wanted something scary, & while I had 'Titus' out from Netflix, it was already 10:30, so we had to stick to something short.

Our cable provider (no I won't tell you which one, but I'll give you a hint: I can't watch the world series) has a delightfully wonky On Demand section where I have occasionally been able to find something to watch in the past. For the month of Halloween they have a scary movies section, & we settled on Body Double, which was described to us as "What happens when a peeping tom witnesses a murder!"

Do you know what 1984 thinks happens to peeping toms? Apparently it thinks that they turn in to softcore porn actors.

I am not fucking kidding.

***

Aside from the obvious tawdry-ness of this clip, the movie is full of all kinds of other offensive views on women. When our main character finds out something bad is going to happen to the girl he is spying on, he takes on a creepily paternalistic attitude towards her, obviously concluding that he is the only man who can "save her." And saving is just what this princess in a glass tower needs, since she unashamedly dances naked in front of a window, that stupid whore. We therefore cannot be surprised when she dies of being penetrated to death:

***

To be truthful, the murder scene was pretty funny, but once it got around to the porn we turned it off & went to sleep. It was midnight my time & there was still half an hour of movie remaining, time that I was simply unwilling to give to this piece of dreck. However, if I ever go to grad school for Gender Studies, you can bet I'll write part of my dissertation based on this movie.

Movie Monday: Mad Men Season 4

And now a brief chat on a subject which I don't think is discussed enough on the internet: Mad Men.

I began getting the DVDs from Netflix at the end of July when I signed up, and upon finishing season 3 went straight to watching season 4 on my friend's TiVo. The Season Finale last night  also marked the end of three solid months of consuming Mad Men like a junkie, and I am in the beginning stages of withdrawal.

Gushy descriptions of the writing, acting, and design can be found anywhere, so I will resist the urge to do the same (although I have done so to my family many a time, & for that, Dad, I am sorry). Instead, I will give you my fourth favorite reason for liking the show, and hopefully you won't judge me too harshly for it: I use it as a little bit of an History lesson.

I'm very dumb, so when I learn about a series of events in school, I usually have to make myself a timeline and a flow chart to figure out how all of the things relate to one another. Mad Men has helped me fill in the arc of what (white, employed) people were possibly thinking and doing all though the beginning of the '60s. Being a largely left-brained visual person, seeing a continuum of what people were wearing through those years has actually helped me make a little more sense of photos in textbooks.

Normally I wouldn't allow myself this sort of thing. In costume research, we are only allowed to draw research from primary sources: I should actually watch 'Bye Bye Birdie,' not the episode where Sal (I MISS HIM) makes a commercial based on it. But for solely mind-organizing purposes, I have chosen to trust the intensive research of Weiner, Christopher Brown, Camille Bratkowski,  Katherine Jane Bryant, and the whole rest of the crew (art departments, makeup, hair, pattern cutting... wonderful how many people the arts employ), considering the interviews I have heard about the books they keep to track who is wearing what when.

I know the show hasn't gotten renewed on AMC yet, but I don't see why it shouldn't. However, I have gathered from interviews I've heard with Weiner that he doesn't intend to run the show in to the ground, which I am pleased as spiked punch to hear. Even though I can't get enough, it's nice to let things die when then need to (because even 'Cats' didn't have nine lives). But am I going to go out & buy all of the Season DVDs during the Christmas Sales? You bet.

Movie Monday: "Catfish" Trailer

Most Mondays, My Father & I go to the movies after doing some housework. The matinees are cheaper, & there's practically nobody in the theater.

But I'm not here to talk to you about "The Town," which is what I saw. Oh no, today I'm here to talk to you about the preview for "Catfish."

First of all, let's talk about the tagline. "The last 40 minutes of the film will send you on an emotional rollercoaster ride you won't be able to shake for days." (Rolling Stone? Citation needed) You know what that says to me? That the first half of the movie is something to be endured as I am set up for the ending.

Second, there's the poster: it's a red fish, which says to me RED HERRING. Faulty advertising? Maybe. But not easy to ignore.

Lastly, there's the trailer itself. It's kind of awkward and embarassing in tone: shaky, amateur photography that looks like somebody used a handheld camcorder to record a TV is less than endearing. The trailer is just interesting enough that I want somebody else to go & see it to tell me what it's about. When looking a few things up on the internet for this post, I came across a review that included the end, and was well pleased I will never waste my time or money to see it.

Was there ever a way that they could have marketed this movie to get me to want to see it? Probably not. But the fact that I keep calling it "Red Herring" in conversation is possibly one of the funniest marketing fails I have known in a while.